Archive News Stories of 2014 from Krakow Info

Year 2014

Local Government,
2014 Elections.

Local elections on
November 16th, 2014 have produced a stalemate-prone
City Council in Krakow.
Poland’s
governing center-right party Civic Platform (Platforma
Obywatelska - PO), secured only 18 seats in the
43-strong body. Its arch-rival, the right-wing Law
and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc – PiS)
managed to win a plurality of 19 councilors. The
remaining six seats went to supporters of Mayor
Jacek Majchrowski who run as independents. In the
concurrent mayoral race no candidate won the
outright majority of the votes. The run-off on
November 30th, 2014 bring an easy win of the
incumbent and thus Mr. Jacek Majchrowski has secured
himself the fourth consecutive term in office.

Voters: No to the
Olympics in Krakow.

Local government has
given up its bid to host the 2022 Winter
Olympics in Krakow after citizens voted against
in the referendum on May 25th, 2014. Only 36 percent
of eligible voters bothered to cast their votes,
just enough to make the plebiscite valid. Yet nearly
70 percent of them said no to the idea of organizing
the Olympic Games in Krakow. At the same time they
backed plans to introduce a subway transport system
in Krakow, to enmesh the city in video monitoring,
and to spend more on bicycle paths.

Rugby Capital of
Poland In the Making.

Rugby 7 National Center
is under construction in Krakow.
The sports complex will consist of a rugby stadium,
a training ground, a club building, and a
playground. The facilities are meant as a base for
Poland’s national side in anticipation of 2016
Olympic Games which will feature rugby for the first
time, namely the 7-player variety of the game. Plus
the complex will double as the home turf of Nowa
Huta Rugby Club, one of Krakow’s two pro teams. The
city hall has earmarked PLN five million for the
project, out of eight million zloties total, in a
bid to turn Krakow into the country’s leading rugby
center.

City of Literature.

UNESCO Director-General
officially designated
Krakow the world’s City of
Literature. It has joined six earlier appointees:Edinburgh
in Scotland, Melbourne in Australia, Iowa City in
the USA, Dublin in Ireland, Reykjavik in Iceland,
and Norwich in England. Cities of Literature is a
division of a wider UNESCO Creative Cities Network
which now comprises 38 cities worldwide in diverse
categories, from gastronomy to crafts to music. Even
as Krakow has long been Poland’s literary capital
its new UNESCO title has spurred the local
government to launch new initiatives aimed at
advancing literature.